Mark Stewart, Mentors, Coaches and Role Models

When considering the impact of football mentors on the coaching fraternity, it is surprising how far that impact reaches. My good friend Glenn Smith speaks of his high school football coach with a tone that is tinged with awe. Glenn is in Russia with temperatures that can dip to 65 below zero while he is building ice roads for a company that mines gold. Surviving and thriving in that environment takes a certain kind of toughness and for that, he credits his high school football coach.

While traveling the state and talking with a lot of coaches, all from different circumstances, the one element in their backgrounds (aside from the requisite passion for working with kids and passion for the game of football) is the respect they all show for their mentors. In the case of Mariner’s John Ondriezek, the choice is easy and it is based on family. John’s primary football mentor was his father-in-law Frank Goddard, the man for whom Goddard Stadium in Everett is named. Interestingly, both coaches have exactly the same winning percentage, although the mentee has now coached three more years than the mentor.

We had never had two coaches citing the same mentor until we spoke to Coaches Tony Amayam and Mark Stewart. We talked with Coach Amayam two weeks ago and Coach Stewart last week. It is a long shot to have it happen at all, but this time it was done in succession. Dick Nicholl, the legendary coach from Centralia (nine years) and then Mercer Island (31 years and counting), was mentioned last week by Mountlake Terrace’s Tony Amayam and this week by Meadowdale High School’s Mark Stewart. Both had worked at Mercer Island under Nicholl’s tutelage, and both have brought his basic beliefs into their programs to augment their own systems, and they have both been successful in doing so.

We recently visited with Mark Stewart in a room near Meadowdale’s weight-lifting room that Stewart oversees during and after school. He is an imposing man who, physically, doesn’t look far removed from his days on the field at the University of Washington. At Washington he was an All-American linebacker, but, perhaps more importantly, he was an Academic All-District and All-Pac-10 choice. He understands the value of a good education. After being drafted by the Minnesota Vikings, he spent a couple of years in the NFL. After the NFL, Stewart went back to the UW to finish his studies and then, armed with a degree in chemistry from the UW, he began a series of teaching/coaching positions that led him through stops at Mercer Island (where he worked with Dick Nicholls and cited Nicholls’ strengths as having an even keel, having the right approach to the game and having unexcelled preparation skills), Renton, Highline, Garfield, and Western Washington University before he stepped into the position at Meadowdale High School in 2000. The Mavericks hadn’t been to the playoffs since 1979 (at that time they were called the Chiefs or Chieftains…the politically correct Mavericks came later). In 2007, after a 28-year hiatus, Meadowdale made the playoffs again. They have been playoff material for most of the twenty-first century since the time Mark Stewart came on board.

I remember watching Mark play for the Huskies and seeing him as a talented football player, but more than that, I remember a man who got everything he could out of the talent he was given. He set a school record in 1982 with five QB sacks against UCLA and a record for tackles for loss for the season, again with five. That is a relentless athlete, and a perfect role model for young, aspiring football players. When he was asked how he chose his linemen, given the probability that all of his players were going to be approximately the same size, 5’10” and 180 pounds, his answer was insightful. I’m not sure if he realized it or not, but his answer revealed that the type of person he chose might have been a description of himself at the same age. He mentioned that the most important qualities a lineman needed were a work ethic and a passion for the game. He also mentioned Michael L. as a kid on his team who had those needed qualities and assured us that college coaches are looking for just that, kids who are willing, play after play, series after series, quarter after, game after game, grab their lunch pail and to go to work.

He is not a screamer, Mark Stewart isn’t. He is an observer. He also seems to be a problem solver, a coach who stands on the sideline watching everything unfold and analyzing it all with his chemistry-major’s precise mind. Then, on the field that is his laboratory, he signals to his quarterback that another time-tested experiment is ready to begin. All the elements are in place. Whether this experiment succeeds or fails this time, it will not change him or weaken his resolve. He just goes to work to fine-tune the formula. Before the game is over, everything will, hopefully, turn out fine and the problem will have been solved.